Serious investigation of love in therapy

Kerome

Well-known member

Does anyone know if there has ever been a serious investigation of the effects of love in therapy? It seems to me to be the greatest force in the psyche, love, acceptance, being held in a caring and safe environment. If therapy could harness that, then perhaps some great things might be possible.

cpuusage

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i have read loads on it all over the years, & have a load of books on it all as well. There is a very interesting talk i have on the PC on it all, But i am so confused about what the posting rules are now on this forum?

cpuusage

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The roots of some of the different arguments & positions within these areas are ancient, & i'm Not going into it all here. It also requires a lot of reading & research.

Within a 'modern' sense concerning the Age since the Western Enlightenment & past 400 years, the most success that psychiatry has ever had was with moral treatment - & was echoed with the treatment of the mad during the Golden Age of Islam. The core issues today are really little different in essence to what they were 200 years ago -

There has been threads over the past 400 years of certain individuals, groups & projects that have used genuinely comprehensive psychological / social - integral / holistic approaches to the care & healing of the mad. Sadly this always appears to be the minority in large opposition to the mainstream / system, & this is No different today.

The 20th Century saw the same thing - An attempt by a minority to introduce humane & comprehensive alternatives & to try & transform the treatment of mental health -

"Although out reach and crisis services are needed, without a 24/7 front end system sanctuary like Soteria, CooperRiis, Diabasis House, the Open Dialogue or the sanctuary - folks don't have a chance to avoid having their potentially transformative psychosis being aborted with medications and a Schizophrenic diagnosis being laid on them for the rest of their lives. Loren Mosher on alternative approaches to psychosis, was agreed that all the sanctuaries like Laing's Kingsley Hall, John Weir Perry's Diabasis House, Soteria, Burch House, Windhorse, the Agnews Project. And the med free, no restraints, no diagnosis, open door Ward sanctuary; plus the Euorpean and Scandanavian Open Dialogue places- well they ALL basically do the same thing. They provide the necessary and sufficient conditions for a person to go through a psychotic process and come out the other side-'Weller than well'- as Karl Menninger famously said. By being held in the healing crucible of a caring, open hearted setting, the psyche naturally sets it's own course and heals from the early wounds that made a dramatic psychosis renewal necessary in the first place. If instead, a person is labelled as having a diseased brain and medicated into emotional numbness and submission, then the energy and power and symbolic expression of the purposive psychosis simply falls back into the unconscious. Then whenever a loss or trauma happens, the person de-compensates into an ever more amorphous emotional and fragmented daze of so-called chronic psychosis where renewal and healing is far more difficult."

- Michael Cornwall.

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The Life conclusion, in the words of who was arguable the greatest psychiatrist & psychologist this World has seen -

“I have now, after long practical experience, come to hold the view that the psychogenic causation of the disease is more probable than the toxic [physico-chemical] causation. There are a number of mild and ephemeral but manifestly schizophrenic illnesses - quite apart from the even more common latent psychoses - which begin purely psychogenically, run an equally psychological course (aside from certain presumably toxic nuances) and can be completely cured by a purely psychotherapeutic procedure. I have seen this even in severe cases”.

- Carl Jung

That attempt was crushed, & thwarted.

Again now at the beginning of the 21st Century, the same arguments & attempts are being put forward by a minority to try & transform the general understandings & treatments of mental health to something a lot more humane & comprehensive. Again there is a violent opposition to that by the majority / mainstream society & system.

The same understanding / approach has in essence been outlined continually by certain individuals - there is another example here by Lars Martensson -

The problem as i see it requires a fundamental systemic / structural shift within current society & within our collective understandings & approaches to mental health. Sadly i think it will take another 200 years before we see comprehensive & humane treatment of mental health as the standard.

Various individuals & groups are currently trying to implement the above, i won't list them all, & have discussed all these areas, largely pointlessly, at length on this forum for years anyway. Soteria & Open Dialogue are i feel about the best current hope, But they are being thwarted, as is always the case, at every turn.

i partly gave up with all 'this' some time ago - Humanity has a very long way to go before it is genuinely civilised & before there is the appropriate & humane treatment of all areas concerning mental health. In the meantime it's very largely business & bullshit as usual.

cpuusage

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Does anyone know if there has ever been a serious investigation of the effects of love in therapy? It seems to me to be the greatest force in the psyche, love, acceptance, being held in a caring and safe environment. If therapy could harness that, then perhaps some great things might be possible.

pepecat

Well-known member

Does anyone know if there has ever been a serious investigation of the effects of love in therapy? It seems to me to be the greatest force in the psyche, love, acceptance, being held in a caring and safe environment. If therapy could harness that, then perhaps some great things might be possible.

I think the 'love' (in bold) is different from acceptance and being held in a safe and caring environment. One can occur without the other.
There are also different types of love as well.
Just to complicate things.......

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